


behind blue eyes

by chosenforthedamned



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Birthday, Birthday Cake, First Kiss, Fluff, Getting Together, Holding Hands, Love Confessions, M/M, klangst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-27
Updated: 2017-07-27
Packaged: 2018-12-07 19:26:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11630298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chosenforthedamned/pseuds/chosenforthedamned
Summary: It's Lance's birthday and the other Paladins want to surprise him. Lance is homesick though and Keith comforts him, leading to an unplanned confession.





	behind blue eyes

**Author's Note:**

> for Lance's birthday, July 28th  
> title from The Who's "Behind Blue Eyes", obviously

_Lance could see majestic waves, he could feel the sun on his skin – it was almost like he was back on Earth, enjoying the beach and-_

And then Lance woke up. Tumbling out of his bed, startled by the siren noise coming from the ship’s intercom. Another attack from the Galra. What a wonderful way to start a morning.

Lance went through the motions, rushing to put on his armour and helmet, grabbing his bayard and sprinting towards his hangar to get to Blue and join the others in battle.

He didn’t even notice that the alarms had stopped and that he hadn’t passed another Paladin on his way.

The door slid open and Lance made his way over to his lion. And stopped in his tracks.

All Paladins as well as Allura and Coran, even the mice, were waiting for him. Nobody wore their battle armour or looked stressed at the prospect of another day of having to fight the Galra. Instead everybody was looking… _excited_? Like they knew something Lance didn’t know.

“What’s going on here? If there’s another attack, why aren’t you suited up already? We gotta move!”

Lance was getting more and more confused by the second.

“There is no attack.” Allura smiled.

“We just wanted to surprise you a little, therefore the alarm.” Coran piped up.

“What? I don’t understand, there is no attack? That’s the surprise?! I don’t get it.”

Lance looked at his teammates, waiting for an explanation.

Shiro started counting down and then they all yelled “Happy Birthday, Lance!”.

“Birthday? But my birthday is in July and we haven’t been out here this long already… have we?”

He tried calculating in his head but quickly gave up when Pidge explained how they and Coran had been working on a device which would translate their time in space into Earth measurements of time and that today was indeed July 28th. Lance’s birthday.

He had _forgotten_ his own birthday. Or rather he had lost track of the time they had spent being stuck in space. Tears welled up in Lance’s eyes but he refused to be the person who would cry on their birthday.

“You, guys… You actually remembered my birthday. That’s really… I mean, thanks.” He was lost for words.

On his last birthday, Lance and his family had gone on a trip to the beach… He tried to repress the memories flashing through his head.

This was his new life as a Paladin of Voltron, Defender of the Universe. That required sacrifices to be made. This was one of his.

Hunk turned around to grab a plate and handed it to Lance. It was a birthday cake or at least something closely resembling one. It had _Congratulations, Lance!_ written on it with white frosting.

Lance smiled, a shy smile, something quite unusual for him. Usually he was grinning or at least smirking. But this smile seemed more real than any emotion they had ever witnessed in Lance’s expressions.

“Cake! Awesome! That’s really nice.” The others seemed to sense that Lance wasn’t as happy as they thought he would be but nobody wanted to pry. So Shiro suggested they all go to the dining hall to taste the cake Hunk had been working on all night. Everybody agreed, even if they were a tad sceptical at how edible it would be. But they wanted to make an effort to honour the time and energy Hunk had invested in baking.

To their surprise, it was good. Maybe it didn’t taste like cake but it was leagues better than the food goo and everyone happily had a second slice.

The only one oddly quiet was Lance. Sure, he had some cake as well but he seemed to lack his usual enthusiasm. Especially on his birthday, everybody had expected Lance to act even more obnoxious than usual.

“Hunk, this was rather wonderful! But I’m afraid I have to check the command room for any distress signals we might have picked up.” Allura nodded her head at Lance and left, followed by Coran.

The Paladins remained at the table in silence.

Nobody wanted to touch on the subject that made Lance look so sullen. They knew he was missing his home and was probably thinking of the family he had left behind.

Shiro glanced at Pidge and Hunk.

“You told me you installed some new gadgets in our lions, wanna show me?” He cocked his head at the door and the other two understood that he was trying to give Lance some space.

“Sure thing.” Pidge agreed.

“You coming, Keith?” Hunk asked but Keith shook his head.

“You can go without me, I’ll join you later.”

As the others walked out, Keith thought about what to say to Lance but nothing seemed appropriate.

He was surprised when it was Lance who started talking.

“Last year we went to Varadero Beach. You can see the ground when you’re in the water and the sand is almost white. My mum made papas rellenas, those little potato balls, they’re amazing and we had a bonfire and I… I just really miss them and I want them to know I’m okay and not to worry but I can’t and it’s just really hard. Just today I dreamed about it and then I woke up and it was all gone.” He trailed off.

Keith gulped. He never had a family he could miss, except for Shiro but seeing Lance this broken up made him want to protect the other boy. He should never be sad. Not if Keith could help it.

“Lance, I know you miss your family but you also have a family here. We all care for you, you know that.”

“Yeah, sure. Pidge and Hunk have been my friends before, so they don’t count. But Allura, Coran and Shiro are only worried about our mission. And you don’t even like me.” The last part was barely a whisper.

Keith was shocked. Sure, Lance had been going on about them being rivals but he never saw them as enemies, he saw them as teammates. As friends and he wished for them to be more than friends but Lance wasn’t supposed to know about that.

“Of course I care about you. What are you saying?” He furrowed his brow. “Do you honestly think I don’t like you?”

Lance looked up at him with watery eyes.

“But you’re so much better at everything you do. You look down on me, I know you do. Everybody always tells me to be more like you. And you never talk to me. Sometimes you don’t even look at me…”

Lance had _completely_ misunderstood the situation. But how was Keith supposed to explain himself if he couldn’t tell him the reason he was being distant.

“That’s not true. I never looked down on you. You’re an amazing sharpshooter and without your skills, we’d be dead already. Remember Sendak? It was you who defeated him, not Shiro, not me. _You_ did that while injured. And afterwards we had that bonding moment you deny we had.”

“We never had a bonding moment.”

“See?” Keith grinned. At least Lance wasn’t looking sad anymore.

He scooted over to sit next to Lance.

“The team needs you and not just because you’re a good fighter. We need your spirit, your jokes when things get too serious to handle. You’re the person holding us together. We need you. I need you.”

Shit, the last thing was too much. And now Lance was looking at him, head tilted, a questioning expression on his face.

“What do you mean, _you_ need me?”

Keith looked away, staring at the table in front of him as if it might have an answer to that question. He had never planned on telling Lance about his little crush and especially not on his birthday. But he wanted Lance to know that he was loved and he didn’t know how else to do it.

“You said I don’t like you. But I do. Maybe too much actually.” Somehow confessing your feelings was easier when you weren’t looking at the person you had a crush on.

“I don’t look at you because I want you. And if I did then I’d want you even more and I don’t know if that’s even possible. But I know you don’t like me that way and you even think I look down on you and maybe from your perspective that makes sense. But honestly, I like you, Lance. And I don’t want to see you upset. And I probably just made things so much more complicated and you don’t have to say anything, I just wanted you to know that you are important. To me. To us.”

Clasping his hands, Keith dared to turn to Lance again.

The other boy looked as if he’d been struck by lightning. Worry made his way into Keith’s heart.

“Lance? Are you okay? I didn’t mean to upset you any more. I can just go and- “

“Did you mean that? All of that?” Lance’s eyes were as wide as saucers.

A beat of silence.

“Yes. Wasn’t that obvious?” Keith had just spilled his feelings for Lance and he wasn’t gonna believe him? Maybe he chose the wrong person to crush on. Then again, you don’t _choose_ to crush on someone, it just happens.

Lance needed a few seconds to process everything that had just happened and then a smile spread on his face.

“You like me. You _like_ me!”

“Yeah, and I’m starting to regret it.” Keith muttered.

“You don’t mean that.” Lance nudged his elbow until Keith gave him a smile of his own.

“So we’ve established you like me- “

“Oh my god, quit it!” Keith threw his arms in the air exasperatedly.

“No no no, I was trying to say that I like you, too.”

Keith’s mind stopped working. Words? Not found. Error 404.

“What?”

“I said I like you, too, mullet. That’s why I was so upset, I thought you couldn’t stand me and it hurt and wow, you like me. You actually like me. This is incredible. I mean, I didn’t believe Hunk when he said you were staring at me during practice but now I can totally see it and that one time when- “

Lance was back to his usual self again. Keith couldn’t say he wasn’t happy about it but there was a limit to which he could tolerate Lance’s rambling. So he cut him off.

“I take it back. I admit nothing.”

“Nuh uh uh. No take backsies.”

“Now we’ve regressed to the level of maturity of a five-year-old, great job!”

Despite the jab, Lance grinned.

“I didn’t ever believe it was, like, a mutual thing. So, can we, umm, like hold hands and stuff? Because we like each other?” He looked so hopeful, it was adorable. Keith rolled his eyes.

“I wouldn’t be _averse_ to it.”

“Liar! You so want to.”

Instead of replying, Keith took Lance’s hand. His palm was smooth and silky. No surprise there, that boy spent hours on his skincare routine. Keith found himself appreciating it now all of a sudden.

They smiled at each other dopily.

“You like me.” Lance whispered and leaned his forehead against Keith’s.

“Yeah, I like you.” Keith nudged Lance’s nose with his own, making him giggle. Then he got lost in those sapphire eyes. His mouth fell open.

“Your eyes are like an ocean.”

Lance’s smile widened.

“Aww, I wanted to be the sappy romantic one. You stole my line!”

Keith raised one brow.

“My eyes aren’t blue though.”

“Ehh, semantics. I would’ve thought of something.” Lance shrugged his shoulders. “Oh well, at least I can be the first to do this.”

“Do what?”

Lance leaned in further and pressed his lips to Keith’s. The contact made sparks flutter down his spine and Keith pushed back at Lance eagerly. Their kisses were slow, unhurried and Lance slid his fingers into Keith’s hair, twirling it between his fingers.

Keith hummed in appreciation and put his hands on Lance’s waist, pulling him in closer. They stayed like this for a while.

When they broke apart, Lance changed his position so he could lean into Keith sideways. Keith rested his chin on the boy’s head.

“Happy birthday, Lance!” He spoke quietly and dropped a kiss on Lance’s hair.

Lance nuzzled into Keith’s jacket and turned his head to look up at him.

“Thank you for making it a happy one.”

**Author's Note:**

> My love for Supernatural is showing, I borrowed the "We need you. I need you." part from 8x17.


End file.
